1867.] the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 21 



is first roasted, and becomes black and highly magnetic. It is then 

 worked either with nunimulitic limestone or pieces of the coral-reefs 

 and smelted with charcoal in small furnaces identical to those seen in 

 Kashmir. I found at Mackeen a house with two of these furnaces and 

 heaps of charcoal, of iron-ore and of limestone, evidently collected for 

 smelting, and I could thus identify the ore used by the Wuzeerees, 

 though no information was to be obtained from the people. I have 

 had, since, pieces of ore brought to me, at Bunnoo, by the Wuzeerees 

 engaged in trade and who bring the pig-iron to the plains for sale, and 

 it is exactly the same ore which I had seen at Mackeen, and which I 

 had observed in situ as one of the members of the nummulitic for- 

 mation. This shale is heavy, generally covered with a rusty powder ; 

 it varies in colour from reddish-brown to nearly black ; it soils the 

 hand, it is not calcareous, and the richest parts of it have a tendency 

 to form concretions, or at least to assume a sort of concentric slaty 

 cleavage. It is only smelted to a paste, not to a fluid, and is refined 

 by hammering. The iron produced is soft and fine-grained, but apt 

 to exfoliate, a defect which is evidently the result of the metal being 

 half worn-out by the extensive hammering to which it is submitted. 



The carboniferous limestone was found in situ in Wuziristan. But 

 that such rocks do exist in the hills between the British border and 

 round the central chain of the Afghan mountains, is proved by the 

 boulders in the rivers which drain those countries. Major Vicarey 

 found boulders of limestone containing carboniferous fossils in the 

 streams near Peshawur ; Dr. Fleming found " Procfec^s-limestone" in 

 the ravines which drain the Solimanee chain towards the east ; and I 

 have found in the bed of the Korum, a torrent which drains the 

 southern slopes of the Sufed Koh, boulders of a black limestone contain- 

 ing Productus cora and P. Humboldtii. 



64. In the Salt Bange the carboniferous limestone is well developed 

 and attains, according to Dr. A. Fleming, a thickness of 1,800 

 feet. It begins near Noorpoor in Long. E. 72° 30', as a thin bed, 

 which increases as it goes towards the west, and attains its maximum 

 of development near Vurcha, in Long. 72°. It decreases again 

 towards the Indus, and is not seen at all near Maree and Kalabag ; 

 but on the right bank of the river it reappears about six miles west 

 of Kalabag, and is continued in the Chichalee range and the northern 



